132 stories by "Dennis Polkow"
This one-act opera highlights a remarkable and largely-forgotten chapter of history: Blacks fighting in the Revolutionary War in exchange for their freedom.
"Moulin Rouge" is eye-popping. There are constant wows.
The six wives of Henry VIII all performing together in a song and dance line on one stage and competing against one another.
Mary Rodgers, late daughter of composer Richard Rodgers, thought "The King and I" was the best of the Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborations.
Former nun Mrs. Mary Margaret O'Brien is hosting bingo and quizzing and informing us about Easter traditions and trivia along the way.
The grand journey of the musical "Paradise Square" reached its culminating destination of a full-scale Broadway opening Sunday night.
This is an enjoyable production with a good cast of show voices.
This is a sumptuous and traditional production of "Tosca" visually with every inch of the cavernous stage filled with a three-dimensional, captivating set.
"Fire Shut Up in My Bones" is a multi-genre work and the first opera in the Metropolitan Opera in New York's history written by an African-American composer, jazz trumpeter and composer Tere…
What Anaïs Mitchell has concocted is something quite remarkable.
Its diverse audience knows exactly what "Hairspray" is and savors every familiar spritz.
Much of what has been said about Sondheim seems to only scratch the surface.
It's been eighty years since Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" first came sweepin' down the plain, but this staging sweeps those plains clean and restores a sense of the innovation and d…
The 2014 musical "Holiday Inn" offers a stage version of the 1942 film, deleting some numbers and adding other better-known Irving Berlin songs.
The kingdom where "Becoming Santa Claus" is set is far north. TThe sumptuous orchestral score is unabashed romanticism.
We watch Scrooge go through his familiar redemptive and restorative ritual with renewed interest.
A conversation with Garth Drabinsky on his new show "Paradise Square" a musical about a pre-Civil War Irish/African-American neighborhood that existed in New York prior to the 1863 Draft Ri…
With its carefree and sunny demeanor, "Elixir" could not be more different than Verdi's "Macbeth," which opened the season the week before.
"This is a partnership which we hope will have an indefinite future. For this house to be able to offer the city a regular diet of opera and ballet changes the feel of what the opera house r…
"The piece is so rich that the most important thing for me to say is 'Once Upon a Time.'"
When Renée Fleming was announced as Lyric Opera's creative consultant in December of 2010, she related that the company would have an "annual commitment to American musical theater" beginni…
RECOMMENDED There is a lot of Richard Rodgers being heard around town this spring, from the rarely heard Rodgers and Hart "Pal Joey" at Porchlight and the first-ever Rodgers and Hammerstein …
RECOMMENDED One of the problems with being the new impresario in town who conducts, directs and simultaneously runs another opera company on the West Coast is catching your breath long enoug…
RECOMMENDED Heavily promoted as two words you don't hear together very often, i.e., a "mariachi opera," "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna" ["To cross the face of the moon"] is actually a play with …
They come without warning, those occasional Non-Equity shows that Broadway In Chicago manages to slip into its lineup. They are usually classics or revivals popular enough to be relati…
